Shekinah Retreat Centre is set in the river valley on 287 acres of land. With a remarkable setting and some excellent facilities a lot goes on here. The purpose of this blog is to share some of the experiences, stories and moments that make this place what it is... special!

Shekinah Website

Wednesday, 29 April 2015

Vounteer Bonanza!

Hi folks.

The last
two weeks have been busy with spring cleaning and preparations for summer. We
have had a few different volunteer groups go through to give us a hand and they
have been greatly appreciated. It began with 3 eager students from the Ecoquest
program from Saskatoon. They were here for 3 days and covered a bunch of jobs
from raking gravel to cleaning windows to grounds cleanup. They came on a
school placement and I think they had a great time getting outside of the
classroom setting to do some hands-on learning. Their energy was certainly
appreciated and if you make it to Shekinah in the next few months, you will
benefit from the work they put in.

The second
group to make their way through was a volunteer chainsaw gang. They braved the snow
to help cut firewood for the upcoming seasons and got a lot of work done! We
worked through the bush along Coyote Fairway to pull out standing dead logs and
buck them up for firewood. This is a big job every year for Shekinah and it was
very rewarding to see those stacks of wood at the end of the day. And it was
rewarding to see people with close ties to Shekinah back here helping out with
this ongoing tiresome yet thankless job.

One of the wood stacks from Saturday

The most
recent volunteer group was part of the Rosthern Junior College Alternative
Learning and Service Opportunities program. 12 students gave us two days of
their time and energy. We got really muddy as we dragged the water bloc
sections into submission and got them folded up onto pallets. Then we set to
work on the massive task of dismantling the collapsed coverall building and
moving its contents into our brand new pole shed. We got a ton of work done
there as well and it is well on its way to being cleaned up. These students were able to serve God with
their hands and remembered what it feels like to get a sun burn even though
they didn’t travel to warm southern destinations like some of their classmates.

Before

After

Every time
we have volunteers come to Shekinah, I am absolutely blown away by the amount
of work that can be accomplished in a short time. I am humbled by how slow it
would take me to do the same jobs by myself or with just the Shekinah staff yet
we finish the jobs in a few short hours with a volunteer crew. I hope these
volunteers also got something out of spending their time here and I believe
that the work we did was very rewarding. This certainly will not be our last
volunteer days of the year so if you feel like this is something that appeals
to you, stay in touch with us here at Shekinah and we can connect you with an
opportunity to serve that suits your time and talents.